I continue to work with what is on hand and it's kind of fun.
I took some white South American wool and blended it with some of the same I had dyed an unsatisfactory green to make a lighter, less offensive color. I blended the same white wool with some Brown Sheep rovings in brownish gray and blue.




Although not beautiful, I still like the result. I drum carded batts with some white Tussah silk combed top, rolled the batts horizontally but drafted out from the side.




It's fun and pretty fast going!

On Ripping

I had spun up some Romney at the beginning of the year and knew I had enough for a vest but not the sweater the yarn told me it wanted to be. My attempts at matching the yarn with some wool from the same farm failed. I tried and tried and felt that my rather costly batch of fiber was dwindling in the sampling so I completely gave up the idea of a sweater in simple lines and in plain stockinette that would show off this unassuming chunky yarn.
A little vest knit on big needles seemed no big deal. In fact, I've ripped out my 3rd attempt, almost completed. It was a simple rustic vest from Vogue Chunky Knits.




I managed to completely mess up the shaping on the fronts so that they didn't match by any stretch of the imagination. I could have ripped out one but it was obvious that the end result was going to fall short of my expectation which was very modest...just a rustic vest..something I might chop wood in or throw on over my pajamas when I shut up the ducks for the night.
Here's a shot of the vest in the early stages. The wool is actually a deep dusky brown.



I am discouraged after 3 almost complete vests!
I think I might get a little cocky when I'm doing something easy and quick................

Mostly Camel

I have restrained myself from jumping from project to project and have steadily made it through 12 ounces of camel down. It seems I will end up with about 800 yards if I don't run out of silk noil.



I've been using a long draw and I'm getting surprisingly comfortable with the technique. I'm beginning to believe that if I practice enough I could do it without watching my hands.
I am a little nervous about getting back to my alpaca fleece. I'm afraid that my yarn will be so different now because of the long break from spinning it.
I recently tried to match a bulky single I'd spun month ago and completely failed. This makes it even harder to keep faith and believe all will be well with the alpaca.